• by Wayne Friedman , April 3, 2019

While cable TV news networks have seen stable or rising overall viewership in recent months, advertisers are seeing declines in a key TV news demo.

In the first quarter of this year, viewers 25-54 were down between 14% and 17% for the three major news channels: Fox News Channel lost 15% in prime time to 421,000 Nielsen measured viewers, while MSNBC was down 18% to 333,000; and CNN was off 10% to 308,000.

Overall for MSNBC and CNN, there was continued growth in the period. MSNBC rising 3% to 1.9 million prime-time viewers, and CNN 7% higher to 1.06 million viewers.

Fox News Channel still maintains its overall dominant share of cable viewing with 2.5 million prime-time viewers, down 1% for the current quarter.

In March, Fox was up 11% in prime time in overall Nielsen viewers to 2.5 million, with MSNBC losing 3% to 1.84 million, and CNN down 11% to 921,000.

However in March, among 25-54 viewers, Fox was down 6% to 419,000; MSNBC, losing 23% to 312,000; and CNN, off 24% to 256,000.

Top news shows for the month are Fox’s “Hannity” at 3.1 million; Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” 3.03 million; MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” 2.9 million; and Fox’s “The Five,” 2.5 million.”